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Should Venezuela decide not to participate in the hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), then according to Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran, the ICJ will rule in favour of Guyana.

Ramkarran said, “If they decide not to participate in the process, then the ICJ will rule against them, give an opinion against them.”

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018, the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres announced his decision to have the Guyana/Venezuela border controversy sent to the ICJ.

While this decision has found favour with Guyana, the same cannot be said for Venezuela.

International media reports have quoted the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza as saying that the UN Secretary-General "went too far" by referring the controversy to the International Court of Justice.

In light of this, Mr. Ramkarran was asked what it would mean for the process should Venezuela reject the decision.

He responded that, “They (Venezuela) are bound by the Geneva agreement, they are bound by the terms of that agreement and under the terms of the agreement the Secretary General has the decision as to what course the controversy should take in terms of arriving at a resolution, so I don’t know they can reject the decision…they can disagree it.”

Meanwhile, the legal luminary said it could be years before the matter is heard in the International Court of Justice.

He explained that the UN Secretary General will have to make a formal referral of the matter to the ICJ.

This will be followed by a preliminary hearing of the matter which he added, could be extensive.